It was more the 'permeate student culture' line that I was taking offence to (it triggered me!). It's nothing like the major influence on student culture that these articles seem to suggest - while it's partly come about as an overreaction to the genuine pervasion of lad culture at universities.
Has political correctness actually gone mad?
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
As someone who's been a student more recently, I can assure you that there's no over-sensitive mindset permeating anything. It's still just a bunch of young people getting fecked up and occasionally running around trying not to miss deadlines.
As for as ludicrous shit happening at universities, I suspect it's nothing new, but that this PC Gone Mad narrative has given a nice banner to write about them. In fact, I suspect you could take any narrative from any era and apply to examples from things at university, the conservative societies used to go on about Nelson Mandela being a terrorist, for example, are we, then, going to say that a racist mindset permeated universities in the 80s?
Id like to permeate student culture again.
I don't know how widespread this is, but it's certainly happening in some places. I don't think you can dismiss it as folly. I also don't think anybody can try and claim that it's everywhere and about to ruin education.
Everybody is looking for an opportunity to register their 'outrage' at something. It is very annoying, but then every idiot has an opinion now.
I'm sure it is, but that's still at complete odds with the experience I had. It's this behemoth of a narrative that I don't believe. That my generation is a bunch of pussies who'll cry foul at everything until everyone but black lesbians have lost their jobs. It's nonsense, we're probably more progressive than the generation before, just like the next one will probably be better than us, and we've got our twitters which make it easier to register our discontent, but it's got feck all to do with political correctness. It's just a world where it's easier for people to get heard. I find it hard to believe that little things like the ones being reported in this thread haven't always been happening.
for example the post under yours:
I mean, what the feck is going on here? It's like a parody. It's the equivalent of someone waving a god hates fags flag while blowing a dude.
A lot of this seems to be American college professors moaning that they're scared of the odd over-zealous complaint.
Might be a problem that's more established in the US than the UK?
That's embarrassing. The first world eh.
Looks like it, to me. Not that I really have a clue how much of a problem it is in the US but I certainly echo what Silva said about UK students.
America is too vast with too many different things happening, some very much opposed to PC, for it to be an established thing there. I mean, we're talking about a place where people don't want evolution taught to their children and where someone tweeting "I'm going to kill you" is a legitimate enough threat to have events closed down. Just look at Donald Trump ffs, he's the leading republican presidential candidate. "Immigrants are rapist, but a few a good people" boosted his numbers for goodness sake.
You seem to be implying there that you can't have problems at both ends of the political spectrum, simultaneously.
I'm implying you're making a mountain of a molehill. If the culmination of this attitude is at a minority of student lead feminist events, then it's as close to inconsequential it gets.
And when it comes to backlashes - is twitter any different to when the daily mail (or w/e outlet) targets someone and ruins their life? Lucy Meadows being a good example.
It's not inconsequential when lecturers are losing their shops and amending curricula as a result. I don't think anyone is implying that this is the end of the world, just that it's a real issue with real consequences.
The curriculum is always changing, so that doesn't mean much. And we've only seen a few cases of people being fired. Some of them seemingly because the university just wanted any reason whatever to get rid of the person. Some being misunderstandings, obviously. But what's really new about any this? Have professors never lost jobs before the last few years? I suspect that if we had access to job statistics the effect of PC on lecturers jobs will be close to 0. That's what makes it inconsequential.
That's one way to win a debate. Made up stats.Better than using two drops of paint and pretending you've finished a gigantic canvas. At least I'm upfront about my guesses.
Another point on lecturers jobs, I'm willing to bet the conservative party endagers their jobs far, far more than a couple of thousand young people on twitter.
I refer you to my point above about the fact that different problems can be caused by people at both ends of the political spectrum, simultaneously.
And I refer you to the molehill. I don't think it stands up to perspective.
Because of your made up stats about no lecturers losing their jobs?
Close to 0, which is as much as you've shown us.
I always thought jazz hands were a description of an octopus-style perv. Turns out I was wrong.
I always associate it with that episode of Friends where Joey has to teach a class of young actors a dance routine.
In the interest of balance:
http://www.theguardian.com/educatio...nt-hinder-freedom-expression?CMP=share_btn_tw
http://www.theguardian.com/educatio...nt-hinder-freedom-expression?CMP=share_btn_tw
I don't recall these sort of analisms occurring in college when I took my liberal art electives. My hunch is that things like this are isolated incidents, and that most respectable institutions of higher learning would laugh at the suggestion of placing trigger warnings before every reading of the Classics. I think most professionals would agree that if you have a problem with trigger warnings, the onus is on you to get mentally checked and healed or shut yourself inside.
That said, there is a strong undercurrent of liberal thought at many schools that fosters a climate of preciousness where opinions that deviate from the majority are not only disagreed and debated with, but shut down unequivocally.
That said, there is a strong undercurrent of liberal thought at many schools that fosters a climate of preciousness where opinions that deviate from the majority are not only disagreed and debated with, but shut down unequivocally.
Someone this sort of stuff is just Daily Mail style stupidity, some of it is just fogies like me getting irritated by new ideas, some of it is just (mainly) young people testing ideas out and pushing boundaries and some of it is just challenging ideas that will be mainstream in the future. Personally I find it far more refreshing and healthy than the "It's PC gone mad" brigade who in previous eras would have been against things like giving women the vote, recognising Aboriginal people as humans, abolishing slavery, abolishing capital punishment (or even burning witches) and decriminalising homosexuality.
Here is how I reply to people who get outraged.
"Your outrage is outraging/triggering me, have some common decency".
"Your outrage is outraging/triggering me, have some common decency".
If you think the hospital did the right thing, in moving him, then perhaps you could argue the reaction is political correctness gone mad.
If you think they shouldn't have moved him, then it seems pretty clear they did this out of concern due to a prior incident and were fearing an altercation. So health and safety gone mad.
If you think they shouldn't have moved him, then it seems pretty clear they did this out of concern due to a prior incident and were fearing an altercation. So health and safety gone mad.
Police extorting money?
That all sounds weird, are they asking for more money for various protests on the streets for example?
That all sounds weird, are they asking for more money for various protests on the streets for example?
Just occurred to me that there are people out there who might actually take offence at the title of this thread.
https://reason.com/blog/2015/09/28/a-mad-scientist-theme-party-was-too-offe
https://reason.com/blog/2015/09/28/a-mad-scientist-theme-party-was-too-offe
Another example, from closer to home:
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/201...ash-against-the-censors-shows-tide-turning-in
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/201...ash-against-the-censors-shows-tide-turning-in
What's wrong with students these days? I used to protect myself from the possibility of being offended by ensuring I was stoned for the entire 3 years I was at Uni.
I tried a similar tactic but my degree course was 6 years long. That's a lot of stuff not to get offended about. And a lot of smoking.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
Not sure if this has been posted before, long but illuminating read about this issue. The context's American but can be easily applied to what's happening in the UK
Not sure if this has been posted before, long but illuminating read about this issue. The context's American but can be easily applied to what's happening in the UK
Well yes and also you did a serious degree that actually required work, as far as I understand it, whereas I did history.
I dunno about that. I just had to cram for a month at the end of every year and pass exams. I was always secretly glad that I never had to do course-work or dissertations. They seemed an awful lot like hard-work. Of course, the real game-changer was having lectures every day, all day, usually with attendance checks. That forced me to learn bits and pieces over the course of the year. If I'd had as few lectures as you arts students it would have been a disaster for me.